Click here
Happiness Psychologist
Sonja Lyubomirsky is a psychologist, born in
Russia in 1967.
Lyubomirsky graduated from Harvard University and later earned a doctorate at Stanford.
She conducts research on human happiness.
Among her findings is that 40% of happiness is
subject to the individual's control, which led her
to the conviction that it is worth striving to be
happy. The other 60% is due to a mix of genetic (50%) and environmental (10%) factors. This
also means that you are born with a certain
propensity to be happy or depressed, even if
your education is the same.
A 40% of our happiness depends on the fulfilment of activities like: expressing gratitude and
appreciation, practising generosity, striving to
think positively, learning to forgive, becoming
aware of moments of joy, cultivating interpersonal relationships, goal setting and pursuing
them actively, practising a religion, meditating,
and doing physical activity and exercise.
With her research, Sonja has learned that in
reality there are no universal or foolproof
techniques to be happy; each one must seek
the most appropriate and apply it in
the proper dose. Also, contrary to common
belief, happy people don't see life in a more
superficial or naive way, but choose to focus on
the positive factors and act on the negative to
correct them.
She is the author of the books The How of
Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting
the Life You Want and the Myths of Happiness.
Another of her fundamental tenets is that we
possess a great capacity to adapt to new
relationships, jobs and riches, so that over time
gratifying changes produce less rewards. This
hedonistic adaptation hinders happiness because it makes us overestimate successes.
Sonja Lyubomirsky is a professor in the Department of Psychology of the University of
California, Riverside. She has received several
awards, such as the Foundation John Templeton award, the National Institute of Mental
Health award and the Templeton Positive
Psychology Prize.